The Corner of Solicitude and Plenty

Union Square Cafe

A COUNTRY AIR Union Square Cafe opened in 1985.Credit
Lee Clower for The New York Times

TO understand why, after all these years, Union Square Cafe remains so fiercely beloved and fully booked, consider a 15-second conversation between one of its servers and one of my dining companions on a recent night.

The exchange began unremarkably enough, with my friend ordering lamb chops and the server asking what temperature he’d like them cooked to.

Versed in the proper restaurant script, my friend nailed his next line — and garnished it with the requisite measure of deference. “What,” he asked, “does the chef recommend?”

And the server... chortled. Which wasn’t in the script at all.

“Don’t worry about the chef,” she said, her voice merrily derisive. “What matters is how you like it.”

Union Square Cafe’s determination to take the airs out of fine dining and put its customers at a special kind of ease was unusual when it opened nearly a quarter-century ago. It was noteworthy when the restaurant received three stars from William Grimes in 1999, the last time it was reviewed by The New York Times. And it’s remarkable even today. I can’t think of another New York restaurant that enjoys such acclaim, basks in such adoration and yet exhibits such humility.

It gives the best phone in the business, its staff so seemingly genuine in their yearning to accommodate you and their contrition when they can’t that Danny Meyer, the restaurateur who insists on this flamboyant hospitality, must be giving them either Method acting classes or major pharmaceuticals. Maybe both.

The staff will actually seat you before your party is complete. If you show up with an extra person, they’ll smile and do their best. And these courtesies, among many others, explain Union Square’s ranking, year after predictable year, of No. 1 or No. 2 on the Zagat list of most popular New York restaurants. (It sometimes cedes the top spot to Gramercy Tavern, another of Mr. Meyer’s places.)

The courtesies explain something else, too: the blind eye many Union Square regulars seem to turn to its slippage; their silence about its drift.

In my occasional trips to Union Square over recent years and in a more concentrated series of visits over recent months, I never had an experience whose caliber was consonant with the restaurant’s enduringly lofty reputation. I had a few flatly mediocre meals.

More surprisingly, I had service that, for all its transcendent geniality, sometimes failed in the particulars. There was coffee never refilled, an appetizer never delivered (and, to be fair, absent from the bill as well).

During a visit early last month, a half-hour elapsed before an overstretched server got around to asking me and my companions anything other than what kind of water we preferred; we didn’t have real drinks until we’d been sitting for a solid 40 minutes.

On that night I got the sense that the restaurant had fallen victim to its own good nature, trying so hard to grant so many people their preferred 7 to 8 p.m. dining times that the entire restaurant was seated almost at once. Our meal was spastically paced and dragged on too long.

A good nature and good intentions: these are Mr. Meyer’s hallmarks, and Union Square, which he opened in 1985, is the place that established that, introducing him to the world.

It has been as influential as just about any other New York restaurant, for the way it melded not only casual and sophisticated notes but also American and Mediterranean styles. At this “international bistro,” as it was termed near the start, Italy played a bigger role than France, another instance of Union Square heralding the future of dining in New York.

Italy still does, reflecting the culinary strengths of Michael Romano, a partner with Mr. Meyer in the restaurant since 1993. He oversees Carmen Quagliata, the restaurant’s executive chef for the last two years.

Their kitchen turns out some fine Italian dishes, including those lamb chops, butchered, seasoned and grilled in a flavorful fashion that indeed took me back to Rome. Together with a terrific potato-Gruyère gratin and a crisp tricolor salad, they shared a crowded plate that communicated a sense of plenty common to almost all of the entrees. Union Square doesn’t encourage you to take mincing bites of measured portions. It exhorts you to dig in.

Two of the pasta dishes that make frequent appearances on the menu were impressive: the lasagna Bolognese, which had no fewer than nine thin layers of noodle that brought to mind the tiers of pastry in a delicate millefoglie; and capellini with flaked cod, broccoli rabe, garlic, chili and bread crumbs. The lasagna (made with pork, veal, chicken livers and prosciutto) did a deft, unusual seesaw between heartiness and delicacy. The capellini had that irresistible broccoli-rabe bitterness, coupled with a faint, fugitive heat.

Across the menu there’s a clear, pleasing commitment to seasonal produce. That’s fitting, given the restaurant’s proximity to the Greenmarket.

But it’s not so novel these days, and the menu and cooking aren’t particularly adventurous or inventive, putting a real premium on execution.

At a restaurant this straightforward, the “crispy duck confit” can’t be as leaden and dry as it was one of the two recent times I had it. The spinach risotto can’t have such a murky, unfocused taste, with little but the bacon coming through.

The shell steak has to be richer and juicier, and there has to be more, better lobster at the bottom of the lobster “shepherd’s pie,” an odd idea to begin with. Otherwise, you’re left with little more than a clunky tower of potatoes — for $36.

The wine list remains a praiseworthy, comprehensive one, navigable by the novice and know-it-all alike. Desserts, which are also under Mr. Quagliata’s domain, are as blessedly populist as ever: a blueberry pie; a chocolate chip bread pudding; an oversize cookie plate; the irresistible banana tart, sprinkled with macadamia nuts.

These strengths and the restaurant’s cozy setting, a series of rooms and nooks that impersonate a country inn, go a very long way.

But not quite far enough. Union Square’s performance isn’t keeping pace with its favor. And I’d like to think that as humble as it endeavors to be, it has too much pride to let that stand.

HOURS Lunch from noon to 2:30 p.m. daily. Dinner from 5:30 to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

RESERVATIONS Call at least three weeks ahead for prime times.

CREDIT CARDS All major.

WHEELCHAIR ACCESS Entrance, one dining area and accessible restroom at street level.

WHAT THE STARS MEAN Ratings range from zero to four stars and reflect the reviewer’s reaction to food, ambience and service, with price taken into consideration. Menu listings and prices are subject to change.